Creation and Evolution, Reconcilable??

I’m wise enough to admit that I am not a scientist. I haven’t followed the scientific method through on anything that I can think of since my seventh or eighth grade project on the rhododendron plant, and I’m not even sure if I’m spelling it correctly anymore!

But, I’m also wise enough to know that the wisdom of the world is made foolish by that of God. I believe Genesis 1 just as it is written, with six days of creative work happening in the order described, in the manner described, and in the time described.

I believe that creatures were created to reproduce after their own kind. The Bible begins with this foundation, and from it we can be assured that man did not have his origin from the beasts of the field, but rather from the creative work and breath of God.

So what then of evolution? Again, I am not a scientist, nor would I ever accept that evolution can account for the origins of all life on earth. The only way land life would have ever formed would be two sea creatures evolving into land creatures at about the same time and in about the same location (else they would never find each other to breed, thus dying out after one generation) and if some form of food had already evolved on land or in shallow water which existed at the point land life evolved. The odds of all that being “just right” seems absurd to me. Again, I’m not a scientist, and no, I don’t care to have it explained in detail. As stated, I don’t feel evolution is necessary to explain origins.

But what about since that time? Mutations within species do happen, and they can be passed along. I saw a program on Animal Planet yesterday which discussed two-headed animals and other such mutations. The example was given of a sow which had a genetic mutation which she passed to her piglets. One was born with two esophogi, two snouts, two mouths, and there eyes. It lived for about a year and a half until dying of a lung disease.

We know that mutations do happen. That’s evolution. That’s genetic change over time. Can it create a new species? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think it is impossible either. A small change every few thousand generations would mean a very slight change in the kind. But the offspring would always be quite similar to its parents, and this would be true down the line. Only by looking at the beginnings and end of such a genetic line would one notice a different, and at no time did any creature not reproduce after its own kind. The kind simply became something else one minor step at a time.

Second Peter 3:4ff. speaks of those who mock the coming of Christ by claiming that everything has always gone on as it has now, that no significant changes ever take place. Peter calls them willfully ignorant of the great flood of the past, which represented a significant change from the way things had been since creation. Would it not be accurate, then, to say that about those who claim that creatures can’t, over countless generations, become something else if even in the slightest way, so that they are regularly distinct from generations past in at least one notable way? Are they not claiming that creatures remain the same since God created them, despite the fact we know they evolve and change, if ever so slightly?

Creationists use the straw man of micro- verses macro-evolution, but they fail to realize that macro-evolution is micro-evolution over a longer course of time. It doesn’t necessarily require that goo turned into you, but rather that sometime ago a primate existed which, over the course of thousands of generations, has become slightly different, the primates we know today.

It is significant that when unbelievers attempt to rebuke the Bible or to make sense of it, they often make fools of themselves for they cannot even comprehend what they are reading–it is spiritually discerned and their spirit is dead to the things of the Lord. It seems to me that when Christians attempt to dabble in science, they make fools of themselves too, and perhaps I am doing a bit of that here. But I propose that there is a middle ground, which accepts the findings of evolutionary scientists in light of what we know to be true from the Scripture. Scripture gives us origins, science gives us “since then” material, and we are left to draw the conclusions for ourselves.

Any feedback anyone can give would be appreciated. But don’t bother attempting to convince me Gen. 1 and 2 are a lie or a metaphor or a myth or whatever else. You’d just be wasting your breath. :)

Credit for some of the ideas presented here goes to my dad based upon an old page on his now defunct website, a soapbox page in which he wondered why the Creation vs. Evolution debate was still raging when it was seemingly quite easy to reconcile the main issues between them. I’ve given that some consideration, and I think he may have been on to something there.

Small edit: Thank you, 74.134.106.31, for the colorful comment which you left. Due to its nature and the nature of Timothy’s Burden, the comment cannot be published, but I wanted to let you know I appreciate the time spent writing it. With love, thanks for reading.

5 thoughts on “Creation and Evolution, Reconcilable??”

My reconciliation is summarized most briefly by saying that the sciences (geology, biology, et.al.) do in fact correctly interpret the evidence. This evidence is there either because God put it there at the time of creation, or because it was created by processes since the creation.

Even if people are not, in fact, descended from protoplasm, it is only because God chose a much later point in the evolution of the planet to start from.

If we are to understand the processes and functions of the planet, we need to understand that one of them is evolution. We would be descended from protoplasm if God had chosen to create the world at a point prior to or just at the appearance of life.

Student of the sciences, the religions, the science fictions, and the fantasies… But mostly I’m just trying to find my groove in this big, crazy world.

I wondered whether you still read here or not. :P

And with that I must disagree. It does not seem feasible that a soul could evolve from that which possessed no soul, or how the spirit could evolve from returning to the earth at death to returning to God at death.

Because these things are noncorporeal and pretty much entirely unverifiable outside of the witness of the Bible, it is not surprising that science does not offer any explanation for such things–for truly, it cannot. I accept that–science must be verifiable, after all! :)

As you say, those things are noncorporeal and unverifiable by science.

If God had chosen to create at the big bang, for example, then a being without a soul would evolve into the being with a soul at the touch of God. Science is blind to this.

But the larger point is, that evolution is how the biological world works. Even if God created the world and man six thousand years ago, evolution is how the biological world changes. If one wants to understand the present and future biological world, one needs to examine it in the light of evolution.

We know that mutations do happen. That’s evolution. That’s genetic change over time.

It’s actually not change. Certainly it’s change (as in the example of the pig) of what’s normal. Pigs don’t normally have an extra head, if it does, you might want to move. If that’s what you mean by change, then yes, I agree, that is what’s happening.

But the kind of change that macro-evolution demands is change of types. A pig isn’t going to sprout wings and fly. (they used to fly though, footballs used to be made of pig’s skin) That’s the kind of change that macro-evolution. That’s a new kind of animal.

A pig sprouting a head is not any new information added.

Creationists use the straw man of micro- verses macro-evolution, but they fail to realize that macro-evolution is micro-evolution over a longer course of time.

Micro-evolution is a small change in a species. For instance, a dog changing into a wolf. Genesis 1:24 says that animals produce according to their kind. So a dog and a wolf (correct me if I’m wrong) can have a baby wog or dolf. Therefore they are the same kind (or type) of animal.

Macro-evolution is a large change in a species. For instance a dog becoming a barracuda. (Not proposing that that’s the actual order that anyone would suggest, it’s just an example) A dog that had a barracuda baby would be an instance of (sudden) macro-evolution. That’s completely new information in the DNA. No matter how much mico-evolution occurs you can’t make a dog turn into a barracuda.

I think we agree on the basics (Literal six day creation, the Bible being absolutely 100% true) so a disagreement in this is not only okay, but healthy. :) I have no qualms, just wanted to offer my two cents.

I give you my full permission to make fun of any grammar or spelling errors I have committed. I would do the same to you. :)